Fantasy is special form reflection of reality, logically incompatible with the real idea of ​​the world around. It is common in mythology, folklore, art, and in special, grotesque and "supernatural" images expresses a person's worldview. In literature, fantasy developed on the basis of romanticism, the main principle of which was the image of an exceptional hero acting in exceptional circumstances. This freed the writer from any restrictive rules, gave him the freedom to realize his creative possibilities and abilities. Apparently, this attracted him, who actively used fantastic elements in his works. The combination of the romantic and the realistic becomes the most important feature of Gogol's works and does not destroy the romantic convention. Description of everyday life, comic episodes, national details are successfully combined with the lyrical musicality characteristic of romanticism, with a conditional lyrical landscape that expresses the mood and emotional richness of the narrative. National flavor and fantasy, appeal to legends, fairy tales, folk legends testify to the formation of a national, original beginning in the work.
This feature of the writer is most clearly reflected in his collection Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. Here, folklore demonology and fantasy appear now in a grotesque form (“The Missing Letter”, “The Enchanted Place”, “The Night Before Christmas”), now in a tragically terrible form (“ Terrible revenge»).
The folklore beginning can be traced both in the plot of the stories and in the essence of the conflict - this is a traditional conflict, which consists in overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way of lovers, in the unwillingness of relatives to marry a girl to a loved one. With the help of "evil spirits" these obstacles, as a rule, are overcome.
Unlike many romantics, in whom the fantastic and the real are sharply separated and exist on their own, Gogol's fantasy is closely intertwined with reality and serves as a means of comic or satirical depiction of heroes, it is based on the elements of the people.
Gogol's fantasy is built on the notion of two opposite principles- good and evil, divine and devilish (as in folk art), but there is actually no good fiction, it is all intertwined with " evil spirit».
It should be noted that the fantastic elements in "Evenings ..." are not an accidental phenomenon in the writer's work. On the example of almost all of his works, the evolution of fantasy can be traced, the ways of introducing it into the narrative are being improved.
Pagan and Christian motives in the use of demonological characters in the collection "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka"

In literary studies devoted to creativity, there is a steady tendency to emphasize the features of the Christian worldview, when we are talking about the last years of the writer's life, about the period of "Selected Places ..." and, conversely, analyzing his early stories, focus on Slavic demonology. It seems that this point of view needs to be revised.
believes that early work Gogol, if you look at it from a spiritual point of view, opens from a side unexpected for ordinary perception: it is not only a collection of funny stories in the folk spirit, but also an extensive religious teaching in which there is a struggle between good and evil, and good invariably wins, and sinners are punished.
In a truly encyclopedic world of "Evenings ...", the life, customs, legends of the Ukrainian people, as well as the foundations of their worldview, are reflected. Pagan and pre-Christian motifs in art system Gogol are given in their synthesis and at the same time sharply contrasted, and their opposition is not perceived as invented and artificial.
Let us first turn to specific examples and begin with the question of what pre-Christian beliefs and ideas are reflected in Gogol's "Evenings ...". It is known that the pagans perceived the world as living, spiritualized, personified. In Gogol's stories, nature lives and breathes. In the "Ukrainian" stories of Gogol, the writer's inclination towards myth-making was fully manifested. Creating his own mythical reality, the writer uses ready-made examples of mythology, in particular Slavic. His early works reflected the ideas of the ancient Slavs about evil spirits.
A special role in the artistic world of Gogol is played by such demonological characters as devils, witches, mermaids. I. Ognenko pointed out that Christianity not only brought new names and Ukrainian demonology (devil, demon, satan), but also changed the very view of it: “it finally turned the supernatural force into an evil, unclean force.” "Unclean" - the constant name for the devil in Ukrainian stories - is contrasted by Gogol with the Christian soul, in particular, the soul of a Cossack-Cossack. We observe this antithesis in "The Enchanted Place", "Terrible Revenge" and other works. early period.
Crap- one of the most popular characters of Ukrainian demonology, personifying evil forces. In accordance with the popular ideas of pagan times, he looks like Chernobog (the opposite of Belobog). Later, "he was represented as a foreigner, dressed in a short jacket or tailcoat, narrow pantaloons." It was believed that he was afraid of the cross. The description of the devil in Gogol's stories corresponds to ancient folk beliefs: "the front is completely German<…>but behind him he was a real provincial attorney in uniform. The demonological character in this context is reduced and personified. “Folk laughter culture over the course of several centuries has developed stable traditions of simplification, de-demonization and domestication of Christian mythological images of evil,” notes. A vivid example of the de-demonization of the image of the devil is the story "The Night Before Christmas", where he is presented in an emphatically comic manner with a muzzle that constantly twirls and sniffs everything that comes in its way. The clarification - "the muzzle ended, like our pigs, with a round patch" - gives it the features of homeliness. Before us is not just a devil, but our own Ukrainian devil. The analogy of demonic and human is intertwined, emphasized by the writer in the depiction of evil spirits. The devil in "The Night Before Christmas" is "a nimble dandy with a tail and a goat's beard", a cunning animal that steals the moon, "grimacing and blowing like a peasant who took out a fire for his cradle with his bare hands." He “builds love chickens”, drives up a “little demon”, takes care of Solokha, etc. A similar description is found in the story “The Lost Letter”, where “devils with dog muzzles, on German legs, wagging their tails, hovered around the witches, as if boys around red girls. In the Sorochinsky Fair, from separate references to the “red scroll” and an inserted episode (the godfather’s story), the image of a devil-reveler who was expelled from hell appears because he sat in a tavern all day until he drank his “red scroll”. In The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala, Bisavryuk is also a reveler. But it evokes a feeling of fear. This is "the devil in human form", "demonic man". Here Gogol uses the motif of selling one's soul to the devil in exchange for wealth and money, which is common in world literature. This story, like many others from the cycle "Evenings ...", can be regarded as a religious teaching. The author does not declare the idea that an alliance with evil spirits has sad consequences, brings misfortune. He presents it in a figurative form, demonstrating its justice throughout the course of the development of the action.
The question of the sources of the image of the devil in Gogol's "Evenings ..." requires a separate consideration and cannot be resolved unambiguously. Gogol took advantage of the wandering plot, which is a complex product of international communication. Of course, also the fact that the creator of "Evenings ..." was strongly influenced by Ukrainian folk legends, beliefs, and literary sources. According to P. Filippovich, the image of the devil in Gogol's first collection goes back to Gulak-Artemovsky's ballad "Pan Tvardovsky", which was very popular.
he saw the source of the comic image of the devil in hagiographic and ascetic literature, noting that “the holy ascetics, indulging in prayer and hardship, triumphed over all the temptations and tricks of the devil,” who “turned into a simple-minded demon playing a comic role.” The researcher’s assumption is also convincing that the comic image of the devil could have appeared in Gogol under the influence of nativity plays of the Ukrainian theater: “the devil of the Little Russian theater is of a harmless nature and plays a service and comic role near the Cossack.”
As in the works of other romantics, the artistic world in Gogol's works is bifurcated: the real, real, earthly, daytime world and the world of bizarre fantasy, nocturnal, dark. At the same time, fantasy in Gogol is connected with mythology, and this connection is so close that one can speak of its mythologized character.
The fragmentation of the world in Gogol is emphasized by the fact that people and mythological creatures are in the same space and exist simultaneously. Solokha is a witch, and an ordinary woman. She can fly on a broomstick, meet the devil and quite real fellow villagers. The journey to hell is made by the hero of The Lost Letter, where he is subjected to "demonic swindle".
The sorcerer has many faces in Terrible Revenge: he is both a Cossack, and Katerina's father, and a creature opposed to the people, an enemy, a traitor. The sorcerer is able to perform various miracles, but before Christian symbols, shrines and covenants, he is powerless. In the perception of Danil Burulbash, he is the Antichrist, and even his own daughter Katerina sees him as an apostate.
Demonological motifs are very important in the artistic structure of the stories "May Night, or the Drowned Woman", "The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala", "The Night Before Christmas". Image plays an important role here. witches.
In folk tales and legends, there is an old and a young witch. In Gogol's "Evenings ..." different types of this character, common in Ukrainian demonology, are also presented. In "May Night" the centurion's young wife, "ruddy and white in her appearance," turns out to be a stern stepmother, a terrible witch, capable of turning into other creatures and doing evil: she brings the lady out of the world. In The Missing Letter, the witches are "discharged, smeared, like pannoki at a fair." In The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala, the witch “with a face like a baked apple” is a terrible witch who appears in the form of a black dog, then a cat and pushes Petrus Bezrodny to commit a crime. Gogol's Solokha does not make such a terrible impression, perhaps because she lives in two worlds. In everyday life, she is a "kind woman" who "knew how to enchant the most sedate Cossacks." Portly and loving, she belongs to the category of witches on the grounds that she loves to fly on a broomstick, collect stars and is the devil's mistress.
Mermaids- water goddesses Slavic mythology depicted by Gogol in the story "May's Daughter". The story of Pannochka-Verenitca" href="/text/category/verenitca/" rel="bookmark">rows running out of the water. They are extremely attractive. However, Gogol's enthusiastic description of the mermaid ends with the author's warning: "Run, baptized person! her mouth - ice, bed - cold water; she will tickle you and drag you into the river.” The antithesis of the mermaid - "unbaptized children" and "baptized person" emphasizes the hostility of the pagan elements and Christian ideas.
Most of the images of Ukrainian demonology are of pre-Christian origin. Christian and pagan motifs are bizarrely intertwined in the artistic fabric of "Evenings ...".
We also observe the synthesis of pagan and Christian motifs in the depiction of holidays, which is especially pronounced in “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” and “The Night Before Christmas”. In particular, the phrase "Ivan Kupala" in the title of the story is reminiscent of the pagan holiday of Kupala, common among the Slavic peoples. Which was celebrated on the night of 6 to 7 July. With the introduction of Christianity, the feast of John the Cross appeared, and in popular consciousness pre-Christian and Christian traditions were combined, which was reflected in the celebration of Ivan Kupala.
The author of "Evenings ..." shows an increased interest in Slavic demonology. But in all the stories where there is an evil spirit - the embodiment of evil, it turns out to be defeated, punished. "<…>Overcoming the devil is one of the main themes of "Evenings ...", - he notes. In the fight against it, the importance of Christian shrines and symbols is emphasized, in particular, the cross, the sign of the cross, prayer, sprinkles and holy water. At first glance, the mention of them in the text of Gogol's stories takes up little space, but they play an important role in the author's conception of the world, an integral part of which is Christian culture. Christian elements are especially tangible in the “real stories” told by the deacon of the Dikan church, Foma Grigorievich. For example, mentioning his grandfather in the story “Evening on the eve of Ivan Kupala”, the narrator does not forget to add “God rest his soul!”, and, remembering the evil one and his tricks, “so that his dog’s son would dream of a holy cross.” We encounter similar accents in The Enchanted Place. In all the "tales" told by Foma Grigorievich, the only salvation from evil spirits is the sign of the cross. In "The Enchanted Place", the grandfather puts up crosses if he hears about the "cursed place". Here the devil is “an enemy of the Lord Christ, who cannot be trusted…”. The motive for selling the soul to the devil is one of the key ones in the story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, in the finale of which the sign of the cross is mentioned several times as the only salvation from evil spirits: “Father Athanasius walked around the village with holy water and drove the devil with an aspergator”. In "The Missing Letter" - a story about "how the witches played the fool with the late grandfather" - the hero manages to win and save the missing letter due to the fact that he guessed to cross the cards. The theme of overcoming the devil is one of the key ones in the story "The Night Before Christmas". Here, Vakula is opposed to the devil, whose piety the author repeatedly emphasizes: “a God-fearing person”, “the most pious person from the whole village”, who painted images of saints, in particular, the Evangelist Luke. The triumph of his art was a picture in which “he depicted St. Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, expelling an evil spirit from hell; the frightened devil rushed about in all directions, foreseeing his death ... ". Since then, the unclean one has been hunting for Vakula, wanting to take revenge on him. However, he failed to buy Vakula's soul, despite promises ("I'll give you money as much as you want"). The sign of the cross, created by Vakula, made the devil obedient, and the blacksmith himself turned out to be much more cunning than the devil.
The story "Terrible Revenge" is one of the key stories in the collection, it summarizes the Christian motives that are reflected in it. An important role is played in it by the motif of God's righteous judgment, which is repeated twice: first, Katerina's soul warns her father that "the Last Judgment is near", then in the story of two Cossacks - Peter and Ivan, which was told by a blind bandura player. In this insert legend, which concludes the story, in the foreground is the motive of betrayal, which goes back to biblical archetypes. After all, Peter betrayed his brother, like Judas. With the image of the sorcerer in the story, the image of a foreign land, barely outlined at its beginning, is connected. The miraculous power of icons helps to reveal the true appearance of the sorcerer. Under the influence of holy icons and prayer, the unkind guest "appeared". The motive for selling the soul to the devil in this story is associated not only with the image of the sorcerer, but also with his ancestors, "unclean grandfathers", who "were ready to sell themselves for money to Satan with a soul." The sorcerer - "brother of the devil", like an unclean one tempts the soul of Katerina, asks to be released from the cell where Danilo Burulbash imprisoned him. And in order to win her over to his side, he starts talking about the Apostle Paul, who was a sinful man, but repented and became a saint: “I will repent: I will go into the caves, put on a stiff sackcloth on my body, I will pray to God day and night.” The false oaths of the sorcerer are opposed in this episode by the motive of holiness. A sorcerer capable of many miracles cannot pass through the walls that the holy schemer built.
The significance of Christian motifs in Gogol's first collection cannot be underestimated. The Christian worldview is an integral part of the characteristics of the author and his characters. The surreal night world, inhabited by devils, witches, mermaids and other characters of ancient Slavic mythology, is evaluated from the point of view of Christian ideology, and its main character - the devil - is ridiculed and defeated. Christian and pagan motifs and symbols in Gogol's "Evenings ..." are sharply contrasted and at the same time given in synthesis as opposite poles that characterize the people's worldview.

The main function of fiction in works of art- to bring this or that phenomenon to its logical limit, and it does not matter which phenomenon is depicted with the help of fiction: it can be, say, a people, as in images epic heroes, a philosophical concept, as in the plays of Shaw or Brecht, a social institution, as in Shchedrin's "History of a City", or life and customs, as in Krylov's fables.

In any case, fantasy makes it possible to identify in the phenomenon under study its main features, and in the most pointed form, to show what the phenomenon will be like in its full development.

From this function of science fiction another directly follows - the prognostic function, that is, the ability of science fiction, as it were, to look into the future. Based on certain features and traits today, which are still hardly noticeable or they are not given serious attention, the writer builds fantastic image future, forcing the reader to imagine what will happen if the sprouts of today's trends in the life of a person, society, humanity develop after a while and show all their potential. E. Zamyatin's dystopian novel "We" can serve as an excellent example of predictive fiction.

Based on the trends that Zamyatin observed in public life the first post-revolutionary years, he was able to draw an image of the future totalitarian state, anticipating in a fantastic form many of its main features: the erasure of human individuality up to the replacement of names with numbers, the complete unification of the life of each individual, the manipulation public opinion, a system of surveillance and denunciations, the complete sacrifice of the individual to a falsely understood public interest, etc.

The next function of fiction is the expression different types and shades of comic - humor, satire, irony. The fact is that the comic is based on inconsistency, incongruity, and fantasy is the inconsistency of the world depicted in the work with the real world, and very often also incongruity, absurdity.

We see the connection of fantasy with various varieties of the comic in Rabelais's novel "Gargantua and Pantagruel", in "Don Quixote" by Cervantes, in Voltaire's story "The Innocent", in many works by Gogol and Shchedrin, in Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarine" and in many others. works.

Finally, one should not forget about such a function of fiction as entertainment. With the help of science fiction, the tension of the plot action increases, an opportunity is created to build an unusual and therefore interesting artistic world.

This arouses the reader's interest and attention, and the reader's interest in the unusual and fantastic has been stable for centuries.

Esin A.B. Principles and methods of analysis literary work. - M., 1998

As a child, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Nikosha, was the name of his beloved son, mother, from his father, from the yard peasants and their children, he heard many songs, fairy tales, legends, stories. Later, in his work, he widely used epic and fairy tale motifs. The places where the writer's adolescence passed had a significant impact on his work: first of all, familiarization with the life, way of life and language of the people. In many of his works, we will find notes of folk tales, legends, epics about evil spirits and magic. Unclean power - the devil-prankster tempts the righteous blacksmith Vakula. “I am your friend, I will do everything for a comrade and friend! - the devil squeaked at him.

Everything is here, as it should be in a fairy tale: there is between good and evil, where, of course, good wins, and a happy ending, when two loving hearts unite, and the devil, who, with his tail between his legs, will run away. The blacksmith with his devout faith defeats the devil, who does not skimp on promises: “I will give you as much money as you want,” he squeaked into his left ear. “Oksana will be ours today,” the devil whispered, turning his muzzle over his right ear. But goodness wins. "Stop, dove! - shouted the blacksmith, - you will know from me to learn about sins good people and honest Christians! The light force prevails over the dark one, because it is clear to a person who the evil force is. very cheerful. Gogol ridicules evil, and therefore makes the devil a comic character, which is worth one of his descriptions: “A completely German in front: a narrow, constantly spinning and sniffing everything that came across, the muzzle ended in a round patch, his legs were extremely thin, but on the back he was real provincial attorney in uniform, only by the goat’s beard under his muzzle, by his small horns, and that he was no whiter than a chimney sweep, one could guess that he was not a German and not a provincial attorney, but simply a devil.

The basis of all comic is inconsistency. Here everything is built on incompatibility - the devil with a tail and a nasty mug, “an abomination with an abomination”, as Foma Grigoryevich will say, thinks that he is an irresistible gentleman, and takes care of Solokha, leads her by the arm: “Here, the devil, having driven up a small demon, picked up under her arm and began to whisper in her ear the same thing that is usually whispered to the entire female race. However, Gogol's fantastic moments are not always bright and cheerful. In the story “Portrait”, the writer, with the help of the fantastic, denounces human vices and punishes the artist Chartkov for weakness of character, for the fact that he serves art not for good, as it should be, but for his own glory and enrichment. At the sight of gold, he has a cramp, and he loses his mind, he cannot do anything with himself, he forgets about art, about his talent, and he wants fame, a luxurious life.

“Chartkov was struck by the inscription: “1000 chervonny”. Like a madman, he rushed to pick it up, grabbed the bundle, squeezed it convulsively in his hand, which sank down from the weight. “Wow, how zealous throbbed in him when he just thought about it! Dress in a fashionable tailcoat, break your fast after a long fast, rent yourself a nice apartment, go to the theater, to the confectionery, to ... ”Evil ruined the artist for his weakness and insignificance, because he let him into his soul, and she died, but then woke up for a moment in which he understood everything, and realizing that it was too late to do anything, he was simply distraught. “His whole life was awakened in an instant, as if the extinguished sparks of talent flared up again. The bandage suddenly fell off his eyes. God! and ruin so mercilessly the best years of his youth; exterminate, extinguish the spark of fire, which, perhaps, would now develop in grandeur and beauty!

In the story "The Overcoat", justice with the help of fiction is restored only after death, and not in real life where injustice is committed. An unfortunate and defenseless person is deprived of his last joy. “There was no respect for him in the department. The young officials laughed and joked at him, as far as clerical wit was enough, poured pieces of paper on his head, calling it snow. Akaky Akakievich did not answer a single word to this, as if there was no one in front of him. Only if the joke was too unbearable, he said: “Leave me, why are you offending me?” The overcoat was like a wife to him, he loved her so much and was in a good mood when he felt her on his shoulders. “Akaky Akakievich walked in the most festive mood. He felt every moment of the minute that his new overcoat was on his shoulders, and several times he even grinned from inner pleasure. No one cared about him, about the fact that this tiny joy was the only one, perhaps, in his life. He does not pay attention to the mockery, ridicule of his colleagues, but he could not survive the fact that he was deprived of his only and last joy, a small happiness of his kind. “Akaky Akakievich only felt how they took off his overcoat, gave him a kick with his knee, and he fell backwards in the snow and didn’t feel anything anymore.”

“And Petersburg was left without Akaky Akakievich, as if he had never been in it. A creature disappeared and disappeared, protected by no one, dear to no one, not interesting to anyone, but for which, nevertheless, even before the very end of life, a bright guest flashed in the form of an overcoat, reviving a poor life for a moment.

And only after death does poor Bashmachkin acquire the ability to avenge his trampled soul.

In his fantastic works, Gogol revealed various qualities of the human soul, good and evil. In his works he urges people to be kinder, more forgiving and attentive to each other.

Fantasy is one of the genres modern literature who "grew" out of romanticism. Hoffmann, Swift and even Gogol are called the forerunners of this trend. We will talk about this amazing and magical kind of literature in this article. And also consider the most famous writers of the direction and their works.

Genre Definition

Fantasy is a term that is of ancient Greek origin and literally translates as "the art of imagining". In literature, it is customary to call it a direction based on a fantastic assumption in the description of the artistic world and heroes. This genre tells about universes and creatures that do not exist in reality. Often these images are borrowed from folklore and mythology.

Fantasy is not only a literary genre. This is a whole separate direction in art, the main difference of which is the unrealistic assumption underlying the plot. Usually, another world is depicted, which exists in a time other than ours, lives according to the laws of physics, different from those on earth.

Subspecies

Fantasy books standing today on bookshelves, can confuse any reader with a variety of topics and plots. Therefore, they have long been divided into types. There are many classifications, but we will try to reflect the most complete here.

Books of this genre can be divided according to the features of the plot:

• Science fiction, we'll talk more about it below.
• Anti-utopian - this includes "451 degrees Fahrenheit" by R. Bradbury, "Corporation of Immortality" by R. Sheckley, "Doomed City" by the Strugatskys.
• Alternative: "The Transatlantic Tunnel" by G. Garrison, "May Darkness Fall Not" by L.S. de Campa, "Island of Crimea" by V. Aksenov.
• Fantasy is the most numerous subspecies. Writers working in the genre: J.R.R. Tolkin, A. Belyanin, A. Pekhov, O. Gromyko, R. Salvatore, etc.
• Thriller and horror: H. Lovecraft, S. King, E. Rice.
• Steampunk, steampunk and cyberpunk: "War of the Worlds" by G. Wells, "The Golden Compass" by F. Pullman, "Mockingbird" by A. Pekhov, "Steampunk" by P.D. Filippo.

Often there is a mixture of genres and new varieties of works appear. For example, love fantasy, detective, adventure, etc. Note that science fiction, as one of the most popular types of literature, continues to develop, more and more of its directions appear every year, and somehow it is almost impossible to systematize them.

Foreign fiction books

The most popular and well-known series of this subspecies of literature is The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. The work was written in the middle of the last century, but is still in great demand among fans of the genre. The story tells of the Great War against evil, which lasted for centuries until the dark lord Sauron was defeated. Centuries of calm life have passed, and the world is again in danger. Save Middle-earth from a new war can only hobbit Frodo, who will have to destroy the Ring of Omnipotence.

Another excellent example of fantasy is J. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. To date, the cycle includes 5 parts, but is considered unfinished. The novels are set in the Seven Kingdoms, where a long summer gives way to a bitter winter. Several families are fighting for power in the state, trying to seize the throne. The series is far from the usual magical worlds, where good always triumphs over evil, and knights are noble and fair. Intrigue, betrayal and death reign here.

The Hunger Games series by S. Collins is also worthy of mention. These books, which quickly became bestsellers, are teen fiction. The plot tells about the struggle for freedom and the price that the heroes have to pay to get it.

Fantasy is (in literature) a separate world that lives by its own laws. And it appeared not at the end of the 20th century, as many people think, but much earlier. Just in those years, such works were attributed to other genres. For example, these are the books of E. Hoffmann (“ Sandman”), Jules Verne (“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, “Around the Moon”, etc.), G. Wells, etc.

Russian writers

Many books have been written in recent years by Russian science fiction writers. Russian writers slightly inferior to foreign colleagues. We list here the most famous of them:

• Sergey Lukyanenko. A very popular cycle is "Patrols". Now the world of this series is written not only by its creator, but also by many others. He is also the author of the following excellent books and cycles: "The Boy and the Darkness", "No Time for Dragons", "Working on Mistakes", "Deeptown", "Sky Seekers", etc.
• Brothers Strugatsky. They have novels various kinds fiction: "Ugly Swans", "Monday starts on Saturday", "Roadside Picnic", "It's Hard to Be a God", etc.
• Alexey Pekhov, whose books are popular today not only at home, but also in Europe. We list the main cycles: "Chronicles of Siala", "Spark and Wind", "Kindret", "Guardian".
• Pavel Kornev: "Borderland", "All-good Electricity", "City of Autumn", "Shining".

Foreign writers

Famous science fiction writers abroad:

• Isaac Asimov is a famous American author who has written over 500 books.
• Ray Bradbury is a recognized classic not only of science fiction, but also of world literature.
• Stanislaw Lem is a very famous Polish writer in our country.
• Clifford Simak is considered the founder of American fiction.
• Robert Heinlein is an author of books for teenagers.

What is Science Fiction?

Science fiction is a branch of fantasy literature based on the rational assumption that extraordinary things happen due to the incredible development of technical and scientific thought. One of the most popular genres today. But it is often difficult to separate it from related ones, since authors can combine several directions.

Science fiction is (in literature) a great opportunity to imagine what would happen to our civilization if technological progress accelerated or science chose a different path of development. Usually in such works the generally accepted laws of nature and physics are not violated.

The first books of this genre began to appear as early as the 18th century, when the formation of modern science took place. But as an independent literary movement, science fiction stood out only in the 20th century. J. Verne is considered one of the first writers who worked in this genre.

Science Fiction: Books

Let's list the most famous works this direction:

• "Master of Torture" (J. Wulf);
• "Rise from the Ashes" (F. H. Farmer);
• Ender's Game (O.S. Card);
• "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (D. Adams);
• "Dune" (F. Herbert);
• "Sirens of Titan" (K. Vonnegut).

Science fiction is quite diverse. The books presented here are only the most famous and popular examples of it. It is practically impossible to list all the writers of this type of literature, since several hundred of them have appeared over the past decades.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is a completely unique writer, unlike other masters of the word. In his work there is a lot of amazing, admirable and surprising: the funny is intertwined with the tragic, the fantastic with the real. It has long been established that the basis of the comic in Gogol is carnival, that is, such a situation when the characters, as it were, put on masks, show unusual properties, change places and everything seems confused, mixed up. On this basis, a very peculiar Gogol's fantasy arises, rooted in the depths of folk culture.

Gogol entered Russian literature as the author of the collection Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. The material of the stories is truly inexhaustible: these are oral stories, legends, tales on both modern and historical topics. “If only they listened and read,” says the beekeeper Rudy Panko in the preface to the first part of the collection, “but I, perhaps, are too lazy to rummage through, and there will be ten such books.”

The past in "Evenings ..." appears in a halo of fabulous and wonderful. In it, the writer saw the spontaneous play of good and evil forces, morally healthy people, not affected by the spirit of profit, pragmatism and mental laziness. Here Gogol depicts the Little Russian folk-festive, fair life.

The holiday, with its atmosphere of freedom and fun, the beliefs and adventures associated with it, take people out of the framework of their usual existence, making the impossible possible. Previously impossible marriages are concluded (“Sorochinsky Fair”, “May Night”, “The Night Before Christmas”), all evil spirits are activated: devils and witches tempt people, trying to prevent them.

A holiday in Gogol's stories is all kinds of transformations, disguises, hoaxes, and the revelation of secrets. Gogol's laughter in "Evenings ..." is genuine fun, based on juicy folk humor. It is possible for him to express in words comic contradictions and incongruities, of which there are many in the atmosphere of a holiday, and in ordinary everyday life.

The originality of the artistic world of stories is connected, first of all, with the wide use of folklore traditions: it was in folk tales, semi-pagan legends and traditions that Gogol found themes and plots for his works. He used a belief about a fern that blooms on the night before Ivan Kupala; a legend about mysterious treasures, about selling the soul to the devil, about flights and transformations of witches, and much, much more. In a number of his novels and stories, mythological characters act: sorcerers and witches, werewolves and mermaids, and, of course, the devil, whose tricks popular superstition ready to attribute every bad deed.

"Evenings ..." is a book of truly fantastic incidents. For Gogol, the fantastic is one of the most important aspects of the people's worldview. Reality and fantasy are bizarrely intertwined in the people's ideas about the past and the present, about good and evil. The writer considered the propensity for legendary-fantastic thinking to be an indicator of the spiritual health of people.

The fantasy in Evenings is ethnographically authentic. Heroes and storytellers incredible stories they believe that the whole area of ​​the unknown is inhabited by wickedness, and the “demonological” characters themselves are shown by Gogol in a reduced, everyday appearance. They are also "Little Russians", they just live on their own "territory", from time to time fooling ordinary people, interfering in their life, celebrating and playing with them.

For example, the witches in The Missing Letter play the fool, offering the narrator's grandfather to play with them and return, if they're lucky, their hat. The devil in the story "The Night Before Christmas" looks like "a real provincial attorney in uniform." He grabs a month and burns, blowing on his hand, like a man who accidentally grabbed a hot frying pan. Declaring his love for the "incomparable Solokha", the devil "kissed her hand with such antics, like an assessor at the priest's." Solokha herself is not only a witch, but also a villager, greedy and loving admirers.

Folk fantasy is intertwined with reality, clarifying the relationship between people, sharing good and evil. As a rule, the heroes in Gogol's first collection defeat evil. The triumph of man over evil is a folklore motif. The writer filled it with new content: he affirmed the power and strength of the human spirit, capable of curbing the dark, evil forces that rule in nature and interfere in people's lives.

The second period of Gogol's work opened with a kind of "prologue" - "Petersburg" stories "Nevsky Prospekt", "Notes of a Madman" and "Portrait", which were included in the collection "Arabesques". The author explained the name of this collection as follows: "Muddle, mixture, porridge." Indeed, a variety of material is included here: in addition to novels and short stories, articles and essays on various topics are also placed here.

The first three of the "Petersburg" stories that appeared in this collection, as it were, connect different periods of the writer's work: "Arabesques" was published in 1835, and the last story, completing the cycle of "Petersburg" stories, "The Overcoat" was written already in 1842.

All these stories, different in plot, themes, heroes, are united by the place of action - St. Petersburg. With him, the writer's work includes the theme big city and human life in it. But for the writer, St. Petersburg is not just a geographical space. He created a bright image-symbol of the city, both real and ghostly, fantastic. In the fates of the heroes, in the ordinary and incredible incidents of their lives, in the rumors, rumors and legends that fill the very air of the city, Gogol finds a mirror image of the St. Petersburg "phantasmagoria". In St. Petersburg, reality and fantasy easily change places. Everyday life and the fate of the inhabitants of the city - on the verge of plausible and wonderful. The unbelievable suddenly becomes so real that a person cannot stand it - he goes crazy, gets sick and even dies.

Gogol's Petersburg is a city of incredible events, ghostly absurd life, fantastic events and ideals. Any metamorphoses are possible in it. The living turns into a thing, a puppet (such are the inhabitants of the aristocratic Nevsky Prospekt). A thing, object or part of the body becomes a “face”, an important person, sometimes even with a high rank (for example, the nose that disappeared from a collegiate assessor Kovalev has the rank of state councilor). The city depersonalizes people, distorts their good qualities, sticks out the bad, changing their appearance beyond recognition.

The stories "The Nose" and "The Overcoat" depict two poles of Petersburg life: absurd phantasmagoria and everyday reality. These poles, however, are not as far apart as it might seem at first glance. The plot of The Nose is based on the most fantastic of all urban "stories". Gogol's fantasy in this work is fundamentally different from the folk-poetic fantasy in "Evenings ...". There is no fantastic source here: the nose is part of St. Petersburg mythology that arose without the intervention of otherworldly forces. This is a special mythology - bureaucratic, generated by the almighty invisible - the "electricity" of the rank.

Nose behaves as befits a “significant person” with the rank of State Councilor: he prays in the Kazan Cathedral, walks along Nevsky Prospekt, calls in the department, makes visits, is going to leave for Riga on someone else’s passport. Where it came from, no one, including the author, is interested. It can even be assumed that he "fell from the moon", because according to Poprishchin the madman from Notes of a Madman, "the moon is usually made in Hamburg", but is inhabited by noses. Any, even the most delusional, assumption is not excluded. The main thing is different - in the "two-facedness" of the nose. According to some signs, this is definitely the real nose of Major Kovalev, but the second “face” of the nose is social, which is higher in rank than its owner, because they see the rank, but not the person. Fantasy in The Nose is a mystery that is nowhere to be found and which is everywhere. This is a strange unreality of Petersburg life, in which any delusional vision is indistinguishable from reality.

In The Overcoat, the “little man”, “eternal titular adviser” Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin becomes part of St. Petersburg mythology, a ghost, a fantastic avenger who terrifies “significant persons”. It would seem that a completely ordinary, everyday story - about how a new overcoat was stolen - grows not only into a vividly social story about relationships in the bureaucratic system of St. Petersburg life " little man” and “significant person”, but develops into a mystery work that raises the question: what is a person, how and why does he live, what does he encounter in the world around him.

This question remains open, as does the fantastic ending of the story. Who is the ghost who finally found "his" general and disappeared forever after tearing off his overcoat? This is a dead man avenging the insult of a living person; the sick conscience of a general who creates in his brain the image of a person offended by him, who died as a result of this person? Or maybe it's just artistic technique, "a bizarre paradox", as Vladimir Nabokov believed, arguing that "the man who was mistaken for the ghost of Akaky Akakievich without an overcoat - is this the man who stole his overcoat"?

Be that as it may, along with the mustachioed ghost, all the fantastic grotesque disappears into the darkness of the city, resolving in laughter. But a very real and very serious question remains: how in this absurd world, the world of alogism, bizarre interweaving, fantastic stories that claim to be quite real situations of ordinary life, how in this world can a person defend his true face, save living soul? Gogol will search for the answer to this question until the end of his life, using completely different artistic means for this.

But Gogol's fantasy forever became the property of not only Russian, but also world literature, entered its golden fund. Modern Art openly recognizes Gogol as his mentor. Capacity, the crushing power of laughter are paradoxically combined in his work with a tragic shock. Gogol, as it were, discovered the common root of the tragic and the comic. The echo of Gogol in art is heard in the novels of Bulgakov, and in the plays of Mayakovsky, and in the phantasmagories of Kafka. Years will pass, but the mystery of Gogol's laughter will remain for new generations of his readers and followers.